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Gyanvapi dispute: HC may deliver order on Muslim side’s pleas today
The verdict is likely to have deep reverberations in similar suits pending before local courts in Varanasi, Mathura and Agra
The Allahabad high court is likely to pronounce on Tuesday its verdict on a batch of petitions by the committee that manages Gyanvapi Masjid that challenge the maintainability of pleas filed by Hindu groups and individuals seeking worshipping rights and access to the premises.
The verdict is likely to have deep reverberations in similar suits pending before local courts in Varanasi, Mathura and Agra. In all three cases, Hindu petitioners argue that medieval-era Islamic structures were built by demolishing temples and demand praying rights. The Muslim sides reject the contention and say that any such legal action violates property and religious laws.
Among the petitions in front of the high court are ones challenging a 1991 civil suit filed by Hindu worshippers seeking the right to worship in the Gyanvapi mosque adjoining the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. The suit seeks to restore an ancient temple at the site occupied by the Gyanvapi Masjid, with the petitioners contending that the mosque is part of the temple.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, which runs the Gyanvapi mosque, the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, and others have challenged the maintainability of this suit, arguing that it was barred under the 1991 Places of Worship Act, which locks the religious character of holy sites as it existed on the day of independence, with the exception of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site.
In the petition, a Varanasi court’s direction dated April 8, 2021 for conducting a comprehensive survey of the Gyanvapi mosque by an advocate commission – a controversial exercise where Hindu petitioners claimed that a disputed structure found in the mosque premises was a shivling, though Muslims said it was part of a ritual ablution fountain.
The current batch of petitions also stoked a controversy earlier this year, when then Allahabad high court chief justice Pritinker Diwaker, by an order dated August 28, withdrew the connected cases from the court of another single judge to himself. “The single judge continued with the hearing of these cases for more than two years even though he had no jurisdiction in the matter as per the roster,” he said.
After chief justice Diwaker retired on November 21, 2023, the matter was listed before justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal, who after hearing all sides involved, reserved judgment on December 8.
Last year, the Varanasi district court ruled that a plea by five Hindu women seeking the right to pray daily to idols installed inside the Gyanvapi Masjid complex in Varanasi was not barred under existing laws and should be decided on merits.
Varanasi district judge AK Vishvesha dismissed the petition by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee and argued that the Hindu women’s plea was not maintainable for being in contravention of the 1991 Places of Worship Act and two other laws.
“I have come to the conclusion that the suit of the plaintiffs is not barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, the Waqf Act 1995 and the U.P. Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Act, 1983 and the application 35C filed by the defendant no.4 is liable to be dismissed,” said the judge in a 26-page order.
